It is a five-part miniseries. I watched the first episode yesterday, it was all right, but there were definitely some slow parts to it. The costumes are great and the few action scenes we did get were nicely done. The acting as expected of a summer TV series with no known actors was at best passable. I may watch episode 2 before I make final judgement though.

Will

After a long absence, I have returned. I can't wait to start building again.

I kept expecting to see Steve Reeves in this hokey swords and sandals pot-boiler. Or maybe Russell Crowe since a certain amount of the look was based on Gladiator. Hopefully there will be an exciting injection of warfare and hedonism real soon.

Redwine the Ribald: Stare long enough into the abyss...
Two-Tonic Tippler: ...and you spit into it.

They are either moving too fast to tell a good, detailed story, or too slow because they are trying to create drama in the wrong places.

I can't decide.

It looks to me like they put together a demographics checklist, then tried to build a story around it.

--Strong fighter / one-man-army to appeal to men: check
--empowered woman / virgin who needs no man, to appeal to the femminists: check
--cute young hearthrob for the young-teen girl set: check
--ancient setting with enough historical background, to appeal to the history channel watchers: check
--power-mad senators conspiring to kill the popular Ceasar, to appeal to disgruntled politicos: check